Jerusalem Through The Windows of Time

by ABRAHAM STAHL

ACTIVITY IDEAS

OPENERS

Aim: Definition of identification and interests
Creation of initial motivation

Preparation: If most of your group have never been to Israel, you and they can prepare this activity together. Ask them to bring Jerusalem pictures or albums [to photocopy] and supply a collection of your own. Have about 50 sheets of A4 or quarto colored paper for backing the collection. Make copies of the Chapter One text splitting the different stories onto different pages. Masking tape, drawing pins, scissors.

Procedure:

1. Prepare a collection of up to 50 large pictures of Jerusalem [from albums]
2. Pool them on the floor or a large central table.
3. Everyone chooses one picture with which they identify most and one which interests them most [to know about].
4. In turn, go round and ask people to show their pictures and say in one or two sentences why they chose them.
5. Use the text: ask participants to choose texts which relate to their picture and mount a quick exhibition around the walls.
6. Review:
   • What aspects of Jerusalem are most prominent in the pictures and did the texts feature the same ones?
   • What new aspects of Jerusalem emerged?
   • Which do we find most interesting?
   • Do those participants who have actually visited Jerusalem feel this reflects their impressions and experiences? In what way?

ALTERNATIVE OPENER

Preparation: Texts as above.

1. Divide into groups of four or five participants and give out the texts.
2. Each group chooses one aspect of Jerusalem [i.e. one text]. The task is to create a "talking postcard": a static pose of all the group to depict a scene from Jerusalem life and a "message" you could send home from Jerusalem about this picture. For example, if this were about the excava- tions, you could have the group crawling on all fours and after the pose [the picture] has been held for a short while, someone could say [read the message], "I thought we would be going up to Jerusalem, not down to the murky depths!"
3. Review the impressions received by other viewers from the "talking postcards" with those created by the text.

DEPTH

FOUR CORNERS

Aim: Identify and clarify levels of relationship to Jerusalem [in-depth].

Preparation: Four headings [statements] on posterboard or on worksheets

Procedure:

1. Either divide the group into fours with one of each sub-group working on each statement OR divide the group into four smaller groups with each sub-group working on a different statement.
2. Allow 5 minutes [up to 10 if working in the second format] to fill out the 5 reasons.
3. In separate fours OR all together, each group in turn, through a spokesperson, each position is presented. No-one may interrupt a speaker; speakers are limited to presenting their reasons briefly.
4. If working in the first format, bring everyone together.
5. Were there any reasons in common between the positions? Were there any differences between personal reasons and the Jewish people's reasons? What are the implications of these differences for us as a people? Were there any differences between the reasons stated by the Jewish people's position and the state of Israel's? What are the implications?
6. Review: Is Jerusalem important to us? How can we make it more so [if you feel this is necessary]? How do we feel about Jerusalem's importance in view of the fact that we live outside Israel and in an environment influenced largely by the Christian ethos? Does this change our perspective? Do we feel that Jerusalem is within us, that we are part of it? How does Jerusalem really make us feel - does it leave people indifferent today?

REVIEW

THEN & NOW

Aim: Explore dissonances, raise issues for discussion

Preparation: Worksheets with a graphic outline of, say, a Jerusalem skyline Note: If you wish to choose other aspects - such as traditional Jerusalem, political Jerusalem etc. - this is also a possibility, but will lead to a narrower initial discussion.

Procedure:

1. Participants may work on this individually and discuss their choices in pairs or groups of five.
2. Have a general review to explore harmony and dischord/contradictions; discuss how these different aspects can create tension and how they can also merge as a very varied tapestry of reality in Jerusalem today. This is the point to examine the juxtaposition of Jerusalem's traditional, political, cultural faces etc.

Worksheets:

• Choose 5 words to describe historic Jerusalem
• Choose 5 words to describe modern Jerusalem

3 PILLARS

Aim: Verify received images, perceptions, understanding.

Procedure: The Sages say, in "Ethics of the Fathers" that the world rests on 3 pillars - Torah, Service to G-d and Deeds of Lovingkindness.

Find 3 pillars on which Jerusalem rests today.

1. Work either as a group using poster board to write up the ideas or allow participants to find others who have chosen similar or identical "pillars".
   • Ideas: Devotion
   • Brotherly Love
   • Holiness
   • Prosperity
   • Strength
   • Beauty
   • her Inhabitants
   • Development
2. Review whether ideas relate to ideal or real Jerusalem and how much they were triggered by the chapter. Discuss what the reality of Jerusalem is.

Introduction to this unit

The whole text of the first chapter of the book